Sukhothai Confidential

PatPat

Posted: October 25, 2010

In July 2006, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, executive chairperson of Chaipattana Foundation (established to help Thai people through nationwide development activities) launched the brand called “PatPat” (pronounced as “putt putt”). This is the newest initiative for promoting products manufactured and food grown from villages around the country. Other objectives of this initiative are to increase local income and promote each community’s awareness of its own resources, traditions and abilities, leading to an improvement in the standard of living for all Thai people.

In September 2010, I visited these areas with the Sukhothai team, with a view to extending our support. PatPat creates a huge variety of products, from agricultural produce, consumer goods, handicrafts and Thai herbs.

The reason we are buying from PatPat is not only for the price and the fact that it is locally supported, but for freshness and its organic growth. Many sicknesses are caused by toxins in food via mass cultivation and processing and also from wrong eating habits, and as our selection principals are the key to maintaining the high quality that we represent, we must therefore choose food that is relatively free of toxins. We focus on sourcing macrobiotic, organic, local and seasonal foods and reject any foods contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, hormones, chemical dyes, formalin and borax. The primary goal of PatPat farming is to grow the safest, most flavorful vegetables and fruits possible. The key to realizing this goal is to cultivate them in accordance with the rhythms of nature. PatPat has discovered that the best way to produce good-tasting harvests is to go back to the way vegetables were grown by their ancestors, before the advent of so many damaging chemicals. This means taking care of the soil through the use of cover crops, compost, and crop rotation.

More and more people are beginning to realize how important it is to support agriculture that harms neither the land nor the consumers who depend on its harvest. We are using ingredients from PatPat such as lime, Jasmine rice, brown rice, bird’s-eye chilies, white turmeric, a variety of lettuces, frogs and smoked snapper, just to mentioned a few, and this list will be increased over time.